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Turtling Bay
History Turtling Bay is on the island of Roatán, located between the islands of Útila and Guanaja (16.34° N 86.33° W), is the largest of Honduras' Bay Islands. The island was formerly known as Ruatan and Rattan. It is approximately 60 kilometres long, and less than 8 kilometres wide at its widest point. The Pre-Columbian residents of the Bay Islands are believed to have been related to Paya, Maya, Lenca or Jicaque, which were the cultures present on the mainland. Christopher Columbus, on his fourth voyage (1502-1504) came to the islands as he visited the neighboring Bay Island of Guanaja. The Spanish soon after began using the Islands for purposes of slave raiding, and no original Native American communities survived. Throughout European colonial times, the entire Bay of Honduras attracted a diverse array of individual settlers, pirates, traders and militarists, engaged in various economic activities and playing out political struggles between the European powers, chiefly Britain and Spain. Roatan and the other islands were used as frequent resting points for sea travelers, and on several occasions were the subject of military occupation. In 1723/1724 an approximately 20-year-old-man from New England, Philip Ashton, managed to survive as a castaway on the island for sixteen months until he was finally rescued(see Edward E. Leslie, "Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls", 1988, pp.100-120). Britain, in its aggressive attempt to usurp the colonization of the Caribbean from the Spanish, occupied the Bay Islands on and off between 1550 and 1700. During this time, the buccaneers found the vacated, mostly unprotected islands a haven for safe harbor and transport. English, French and Dutch pirates established settlements on the islands and raided the cumbersome Spanish cargo vessels laden with gold and other treasures from the new world. In 1797, the British defeated the Afro-indigenous Black Carib, who had been supported by the French, in a battle for control of the Windward Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Weary of their resistance to their plans for sugar plantations, the British rounded up the St. Vincent Black Carib and deported them to Roatán. The majority of Black Carib migrated to Trujillo on mainland Honduras, but a portion remained to found the community of Punta Gorda on the northern coast of Roatán. The Black Carib, whose ancestry includes Native American (Arawak) cultures and African Maroons, remained in Punta Gorda, becoming the Bay Island's first permanent post-Columbian settlers. They also migrated from there to parts of the northern coast of Central America, becoming the foundation of the modern day Garífuna culture. The main permanent population of Roatán originated from the Cayman Islands near Jamaica, arriving in the 1830s shortly after the end of slavery in British territories disrupted the economic structure that had maintained Caymanian culture. Caymanians were largely a seafaring culture and were familiar with the area from turtle fishing ventures and other activities. Former Caymanian slave-owners were among the first to settle on the seaside locations throughout primarily western Roatán. Former slaves continued to arrive during the 1830s and 1840s, and altogether, the former Caymanians became the largest cultural group on the island. In the 1850s for a brief period the Bay Islands were declared a colony by Britain, who within a decade ceded the territory formally back to Honduras, who administers the Islands today. Today on the island of Roatan you can buy lots or homes in Turtling Bay, a new luxury real estate development. RvR Notes Turtling Bay is a vital shipbuilding port for the British Nation. Capture of this port is more difficult than St. John's for two reasons, NPC spawns in the area are relatively low and there are no nearby contestable ports that can provide an overlapping PvP zone.